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The Powers That Be
The Powers That Be is a term that refers to the first beings to exist in this dimension and who preceded the Old Ones. Having left the reality, these beings now watch over mankind and guide the forces of good. The first mention of The Powers That Be (sometimes shortened to "the Powers" or "the PTB") comes in season one of Angel, when a half-human, half-demon named Doyle makes contact with Angel and claims that the Powers send him visions of people in trouble who need Angel's help. The visions are extremely powerful, come at seemingly random times, and cause extreme pain in the recipient. Methods of communication Though Angel never makes contact with the Powers themselves, with the exception of Jasmine, he does communicate with them in a number of ways. #'The Visions'. The visions are first given to Doyle, then pass to Cordelia and finally make their way to Angel. The Powers send roughly 30 visions over the course of the series. The visions tend to have double meanings. There is a micro-purpose and macro-purpose to each vision. For instance, the Power's first vision tells Doyle that "we have a common enemy." On a micro scale, the Powers mean the Scourge. On the macro scale, they mean the Senior Partners or evil itself. While helping people, the visions tend to make Angel meet the right people who are useful to plans and prophecies later. #'The Oracles'. Angel visits the Oracles on four occasions (once to find if he really was human, once to turn back time after becoming human, once after the death of Doyle and once after their murder by Vocah). The Oracles, a pair of Greek-god-like entities, one male and one female, give Angel prophecy-like advice. They are murdered by Vocah in the Season 1 finale, but the female Oracle is able to manifest in spiritual form to speak to Angel one last time. #'The Host'. Through the Host, Angel and the gang find their destiny by singing. Though this connection is rather indirect, it is strong enough for Lorne to recognize visions from the Powers as opposed to visions from Wolfram & Hart in "That Vision Thing". Lorne's knowledge also allows Angel to speak to the Powers through the Trials and the Conduit. #'The Trials'. Through the Trials, Angel asks the Powers to give Darla a second chance. The Trials are referred to as the Powers later by Angel and Wes when speaking about their inaction. #'The Conduit'. Midway through season three, in the episode "Birthday", Cordelia has a vision which knocks her into a coma and while unconscious, is visited by Skip who reveals that humans are not strong enough to bear the visions. After learning the deadly effects of the visions, Angel seeks to communicate with the Powers That Be, which he accomplishes via The Conduit (which shouldn't be confused with Wolfram & Hart's Conduit of the White Room). It is not made clear whether the Conduit is an incorporeal entity or merely a channel of communication that allows speaking with the Powers That Be themselves. Nevertheless, Angel enters an empty cave with a bonfire in the middle and speaks with an entity or entities which sound like the disembodied voices of a man and a woman speaking almost in synchronicity. #[[Ghost|'Ghosts']] . On two occasions, the Powers send ghosts to speak to people. During season 4, the Powers send a vision of Darla to Connor to convince him not to kill an innocent girl. He doesn't listen and Jasmine is born. During season 5, the Powers grant Cordelia a favor before dying, and send a corporeal astral projection of Cordelia to Angel, where she helps reorient him and pass him the visions. Cordelia later appears before Angel in "After the Fall." Opinions about the Powers The Powers that Be are also referred to by Fred as "The Powers that Screw You" and by Gunn as "The Powers that Sit on Their Be-hinds", due to their apparent inaction during many times of crisis that Angel Investigations face; Angel and Jasmine also complain about their lack of interest in important events. Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley and Lorne appear much more concerned with doing their will. It is believed the Powers That Be are the ones who caused a snowstorm the 1999 Christmas morning, preventing Angel from being killed by sunlight. It is possible that they did this in order to allow Angel to redeem himself and fulfill the Shanshu Prophecy. Some fans believe that the Powers are responsible for bringing Angel back from Hell in the Buffy Season 3 episode, Faith, Hope, and Trick, even though The First Evil takes credit for this. Season Five and After the Fall After the defeat of Jasmine, Angel and his team seem to have given up on the Powers and their wishes until Cordelia wakes from her coma, in the episode "You're Welcome", thanks to an incredibly powerful vision from the Powers. At the end of the episode, Cordelia comments that the Powers "owed her one." In the penultimate episode of the series, Angel reveals that after a kiss good-bye with Cordelia shortly before her death, he received one final vision from The Powers concerning the Circle of the Black Thorn, the leading enforcers of the Senior Partners’ will on Earth. The vision gave Angel the information he needed to take the Black Thorns down. The canonical continuation of the series, Angel: After the Fall, states that after her death, Cordelia has become a genuine Higher Being in the service of the Powers, though she does not have the power to go up against the Senior Partners or to help Angel and the others, who are trapped in Hell/Los Angeles. See Also Servants of the Powers That Be Powers That Be, The Powers That Be, The Powers That Be Category:Allen Francis Doyle Category:Cordelia Chase